Activision Acquires King Digital, Candy Crush Saga for $5.9 Billion

November 3, 2015 / 8:00 AM

By: Matthew Williams

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If gamers thought the $2.9 billion cash acquisition of Mojang (Minecraft developer) by Microsoft was monumental, wait until they hear about the most recent news between King Digital (Candy Crush Saga developer) and Activision. The publisher just announced plans to buy the highly successful developer for a whopping $5.9 billion, more than double the estimated amount of the Mojang/Microsoft acquisition.

While it may not be completely fair to compare these two acquisitions (Microsoft acquired Mojang for $2.9 billion in cash, whereas Activision is acquiring King Digital through purchasing shares of stock), this business decision still marks a major shift in the gaming industry. Activision is now the proud owner of the highest-grossing gaming franchises for each major platform: mobile (Candy Crush Saga), console (Call of Duty), and PC (World of Warcraft). If this doesn’t scream potential anti-trust, then I don’t know what does anymore.

While many hardcore gamers don’t think twice about the mobile gaming space, it’s difficult to ignore that it is the “largest and fastest-growing opportunity for interactive entertainment”, per a statement released by Bobby Kotick (CEO, Activision).

Just to give you a perspective on the success of King Digital and Candy Crush Saga, here are some statistics that will blow your mind (source(s): Inquisitr/Kotaku):

Candy Crush Saga has been the ‘Most Played Facebook Game’ since 2013

Candy Crush Saga has 364 million unique monthly players, which is more than 5x the amount that League of Legends, the ‘most-played online game’, pulls in

Candy Crush Saga pulled in a whopping $1.33 billion in revenue for 2014

The deal is set to complete around spring 2016, with pending approvals from the King Digital shareholders and the courts of Ireland.

About the author /

Matthew, a graduate from Texas Christian University, now works as a Senior Digital Analytics Consultant for Ernst & Young. With a passion for video games (mostly retro and survival horror) and data, Matthew is pursuing a career in game analytics.